Guides/Which Hero Next?
If you have any questions, suggestions or feedback about this article - please don't make threads about that on Reddit, hit me on Discord instead (Jackal Of Death #7765). ' ' Suitable for v3.04 and higher. "Hey guys, i have 7 heroes: mage, warrior, rogue (god damn people who spell rouge instead), assassin, berserker, cleric, bard. Which char should I get next?" That's kind of a question that often appear in both Reddit and Discord. The most proper response should be like "pick what you'd like to, if you ever make inappropiate decision, remember - the game doesnt lock you with that, you can always reclass your goon - for the price, of course". This, hovewer, doesn't help that much the guy who asked the question - so I made this article so maybe it would help people with dillemas like that, hopefully efficiently. 1. some people just say: "get at least 1 character from each class". TBH I gotta agree with that one, because it causes more diversity in building characters thus gives more fun. But if you for some reason hate rogues/warriors/berserkers/DKs or any other class - just don't pick them. Note you need at least 1 of them to have some classes unlocked. 2. no matter if you are F2P player, or bought paid content, ask yourself a question: "which kind of hero do I need the most? Do I need a true damage dealer (rogue, assassin, DK(only in P2P)), healer (cleric, paladin), generic DPSes (literally every class except bard, paladin) or dispellers (mage, bard)"? 3. ask yourself another question: "if most of lategame quests are gonna be 6-man ones, how can I build my roster that features all of them in split parties? How can I build each party so it can perfectly balance between keeping themselves alive and deal enough damage to defeat my enemy? If I can't split my roster to 6-man only parties, what should others do? Farming bushes/lower tier maps/golems or treants/lower tier monsters"? 4. read the tierlist below and balance your team roster around your needs. ------------------------------------------------ Most tierlists instead of using grades from 1 to 10 use tiers (from SS/S/A to D/F). The following will use 2nd variant that has 10 "tiers" at (starting from best) SS/S+/S/S-/A+/A/A-/B/C/D. Because of 10 "tiers", this can be freely converted to grade (f.e. SS means 10/10, A - 5/10, D - 1/10). I'll use tiers to place on all heroes - SS means borderline broken, A - greatly balanced, D - completely useless. I have placed no heroes in D for obvious reasons. Note that this tierlist, like all of them, is purely subjective - so if you see your favourite hero in lower tier than you would place them, please don't get angry about that. Warrior Warrior a.k.a The Very First Hero Most Merchant Players Get (including me lul). On paper, he has amazing defense skills that are however overshadowed by his lack of sustain and rather poor offensive coefficients. The main warrior problem is that despite of being amazing tank with massive HP pool and flex to hybrid or even full mdef tank (block skill compensates for that), in fact he does wonders in tiers 1-mid T5, but he's useless aganist big 5 Grimhal bosses since he is unable to tank things on his own - they have AoE attacks (excluding Skorge, but why would you forgo 2 slots just to let him take massive damage?) and if you are F2P, you have no access to taunt thus you cant do NOTHING. Slash & Bash is his main DPS ability with rather low AP cost (6), but other DPSes just do more and on harder modes DPS S&B warrior falls off. Reason why I placed F2P warrior so low is because although he has quite strong early, rogue can almost do the same while flex into TD while not having unusable 4 out of 6 abilites (both shield slams, slash 1, unbreakable) in end-game. He also has no team buffs and has rather selfish kit. In P2P he's a bit better because taunt is a must-have aganist specific encounters (Balor, Archon, Protector, Mountain King) - but still, rather unable to do anything else except meme HP or S&B builds featuring some crit and mountain blade. reccomended amount: 1 Overall rating: B w/o FT expansion, A- otherwise Rogue He has quite a simple kit - atk reduction, def reduction, true damage (all using equally acc and atk as offensive coefficients) and evade to significantly negate strong attacks. He starts out rather average early into quite good mid to amazing lategame because 40% atk shred and true damage using 2 stats are huge. Sunder might work to shred Ozai's only offensive stat or boost other physical heroes damage potential in cost of doing rather crap damage, though. Always get at least 2 rogues because ambush can make a big difference in atk-based quests, and he can work as TD dealer too. Can also flex to physical tank thanks to evade. Overall very good hero and a must-have, not just to unlock berserker. Haven't placed him in SS because he has no sustain, and his DLC skill is rather weak. Falls off a little in FT in favor of assassin and DK outdamaging him a little, but ambush is still extremely important skill. reccomended amount: 2 at F2P, 3/4 at P2P Overall rating: S+ w/o expansions, S otherwise Mage "Silence bot" is often how mage is described in both reddit and discord. He has: two generic damage skills, shield providing M. ATK PROTECTION ONLY, a said silence, and 2 damaging moves providing him some buffs. In DLC he gains new skill that doubles effects of all debuffs and deals damage per each debuff. He starts off with good early and mid, into an below average endgame. The problem with his mana shield, which is mostly used for solo quests rather than self sustain, is that single basic attack can ruin it completely; in fact, he can rather easily defeat demon mage or undead mage using one or two shields (ending with some damage though), but defeating Arkyos who can use basic every round at 200 atk is much harder and very hard to do, especially on F2P. Silence is very important skill to get rid of nasty buffs like dragon scales, iron hide, inner fire and make your life a bit easier. His damage potential isn't very big unless he has DK's terrify support and some crit (rotation: MM1 -> MM2 -> MM2). He should be treated as a dispeller with some potential to solo selected magical quests. At F2P, amplify is strong skill, which can be used for utility purposes, BIG damage (need a setup from at least 3/4 heroes, including DK and asssassin) or mixture of both, making him a balanced character. reccomended amount: 1 Overall rating: A- w/o FT expansions, A otherwise Berserker "A mighty warrior with high attack" is how this hero is decribed in-game. As each hero, he has 6 skills: 2 generic damage abilities, 2 buffs (one providing 60% attack + 10% for taking damage, second giving 60% crit and -30% acc), and 2 vicious strikes - one giving him atk buff, 2nd appplying a DoT if crit. Although at first glance his skillset looks nice, in reality isn't that good - not only he has selfish kit, but also he needs crit to be relevant (blind fury solves this problem partially), has accuracy issues (due to low dex scaling), and most enemies, starting from T3 bosses have significant amount of defenses negating huge amount of his damage, so he needs rogue's sunder to make up for this. In late, he comes online only with AP gear, 100 crit, and sunder 2 backup. Edit: actually he isn't that bad in F2P - even without sunder setup, he goes toe-to-toe with both assassin and rogue aganist big grimhal 5 (calcs posted below - courtesy of @kokowei from Discord). Reason why he's in A- is because he relies on heavy plate making him vulnerable to magic attacks (Arkyos and Cragus which are important bosses), and he underperforms aganist two of other bosses that give valuable equipment - Galam and Fatalis. In P2P, smash is only effective aganist enemies with MILIONS of amounts of HP, so archon/protector at hard/legendary mode (matybe standard too). In non-smash setups he needs sunder 2 backup (the question is, if its worth to sacrifice CS2 for it?). Even in hard mode, he didn't seem to outdamage my assassin aganist an azuros with 750k HP. reccomended amount: 1 Overall rating: A- w/o expansions, B otherwise Cleric With best healing skills, Cleric is a core of every 6-man party, also has decent soloing potential. Ultimately she can work as DPS too, but not as strong as mage. Has single target healing appropiate for front row target (f.e. taunting warrior or single char in front row), AoE heal to keep the entire team alive, 2 generic damage abilities, cleanse to remove all debuffs from party, little acc+matk boost for whole party lasting 3 turns. At 51lvl, she gains revive skill - not very good since restaunt cheese has been killed few months ago. For healing alone this character is a must-have. recommended amount: 2 at F2P, 3 at P2P Overall rating: S Assassin DPS cased entirely on accuracy as an offensive stat, that means his basic attacks will just glance enemies. Has low cost damaging skill, crit boost for party, 2 true damage moves, damaging skill with enchanced critical damage, and an evade. Has crap early though below average mid to decent lategame, so he shouldn't be recruited as one of the first of your goons. Can be build towards both physical crit and true damage dealer. In the first case, he would use rogue's help (sunder 2). In FT expansion, he gains skill that increases target's damage taken - not very useful outside of amplify mage setup. Average in F2P due to struggling in DP5 with zeker and rogue as well as worse gearing, a bit better due to access to acc% and luck items. Reccomended amount: 1 in F2P, 2 in P2P Overall rating: A w/o expansions, A+ otherwise Paladin I think it's safe to say that paladin is more of a support/healer class than an actual mdef tank. He has crappy 1st skill which goes aganist his purpose of being magical hero. Templar shield is a damage skill, which can be used to farm weaker monsters and bushes, but falls off in mid and late. Shield is only useful in 2 encounters: undead mage and arkyos. HB grants constant mdef and atk buff. Lights grace is as well constant heal scaling with both mdef and matk. Cleanse gets rid of all debuffs. Unfortunately, in F2P he's rather useless hero who isn't at D only because he is actually good aganist arkyos, to block his huge center attack, heal and give mdef buff, and has some soloing potential. It's completely fine not to use him at all in F2P. In P2P and harder modes, hovewer, he gains on value: busted scaling on holy shield make all magic attacks hit like a wet noodle, including those who ignore % of defense (as long as you build him properly). reccomended amount: 0/1 at F2P, 1 at P2P Overall rating: B w/o expansions, A otherwise Dark Knight Very interesting hero whose attacks scale with both atk and matk, making him fun to build due to big diversity. His main weakness is poor dex scaling (0/2/4), so he needs gear providing flat accuracy, acc enchants or ultimately acc passive. Has 2 generic damage abilities with built-in lifesteal, 2 DoTs which one of them sloves, damaging ability that decreases target's mdef, and atk%matk buff to entire party. Thanks to lifesteal, he can solo farm some party-oriented enemies and is quite strong at every point of the game. Falls off a little in F2P late as enemies have lots of def, but still manages to do decent damage. In P2P, he gains TD move that is arguably best of them all as he has access to more AP pieces than physical DPSes, lower AP cost, and he utilizes bard's song of courage as well as inspirational song perfectly. Decent in F2P, must have in DLC content. reccomended amount: 1/2 at F2P, 2/3 at P2P Overall rating: A+ w/o expansions, S otherwise Bard Hero, who quickly became a meme. At first, he was nothing but poem bot. Then, he became almost useless. Few months ago, he got a rework and buff he needed and he became a very valuable character. Has 10 built-in luck, a luck-stacking damage ability useful for long fights and farming bushes, ability that decreses his own def by 90% and decreases enemys atk by 40%, ability that provides more than 100% of his atk&matk&acc to next hero, a little weaker silence, ability that gives 40% reflect, and ability that decreses everyone's atk&matk by 50%. Serenade should be used carefully, as it strips bard of most of his own protections, making him extremely vulnerable - it stacks additively with rogue's ambush though. Inspirational song apart from meme builds can be sometimes useful if you use him mostly for song of courage (remember about proper positioning or you may give the stats to hero you wouldn't want to). Reflect song may be useful for very high damaging AoE moves to let bard do some damage. Peaceful respite (combined with ambush and amplify skills) is the only reason I've accomplished P1 hard frentir map on hard mode. Arguably his biggest con is very low HP pool - to make up for that, he needs some HP gear so it can protect him from being oneshot by TD abilities (deso wolf, fatalis) Poem of focus is a massive boost to crit-oriented party. At 51lvl, at gains atk%matk buff for everyone that stacks - as I said before, it perfectly synergizes with Dark knight, but also rogue, mage, and cleric. Thanks to his kit which can do a lot of things, he can be built in many ways - AP/luck (poem build), AP + atk/matk/acc (SoC + IS), matk/acc/atk + luck (IS only), or just full utility (luck+speed). Also remember his "silence" not only removes enemy's buffs, but also debuffs - consider that while planning your strategy, so he can't remove important debuffs. 'Overall rating: S-' F2P calculations (physical) everyone in optimized +16 gear, p1 lvl50 + plvl pots and masters for ap /10% enchants for the rest of the slots no support moves calced in rogue was fates call/elder demon hood/fatalis plate/galams hand/galams boots/galams ring, 2x masters 4x radiant berserker was fates decree/fatalis helm/fatalis chest/galams hand/galams boots/shadow earring, 2x masters 4x radiant assassin was balmung/hellguards veil /fafnirs tunic/ elder demon gloves/fafnirs boots/ molten core, 2x masters 4x brisk (should be galam's greaves, thats why values are approximated) both rogue and assassin CS2/P2 in T1/2/3 zerker skill setup: BF/VS2/S1/VS2 Skorge Berserker 10062 Rogue 9601 Assassin 8,7k Fafnir Rogue 9479 Berserker 8943 Assassin 8,7k Arkyos Berserker 10733 Rogue 9673 Assassin 8,8k Ozai (unbuffed) Rogue 9237 Assassin 8,7k Berserker 6706 Fatalis Rogue 9303 Assassin 8,7k Berserker 7318 Galam Rogue 9383 Berserker 8050 Assassin 7949 Cragus Rogue 9537 Berserker 9471 Assassin 7983 Category:Guides